Adventure to Middle Earth
by Thranduilseyebrows
Summary: Hayley Webster is at home one evening, when she hears a noise coming from outside her window. She finds a portal to Middle Earth, meets four rather shocked hobbits and is swept up on a quest to defeat Saruman's evil forces and protect what good that is left in the world...
1. Chapter 1

**CHAPTER 1:**

The luminescent digital numbers noisily flicked over to another hour with a heavy, glowing clunk. The orange glare reading '2:00am' propelled in a thick, lazy group of frazzled colours, and was engulfed in darkness by the time it had crawled to the other side of the room. The only other light that attempted to penetrate the darkness was a dull, electric blue gleam that radiated from a laptop screen, highlighting the hollowed and tired features of a 16 year old girl. The sharp click of fingers dancing methodically across the surface of a keyboard was the only thing to disrupt the utter silence and tranquillity of the night. Tired eyes were fading and succumbing to the ever increasing need for sleep, when a text message appeared on the laptop screen accompanied by the sound of the TARDIS materialising. Groggy hands fumbled across the keys and sluggishly opened the message:

_To: Hayley Webster_

_From: Maia Vaisey_

_hayles, r u still up? u do realise that its 2am and we have our chem exams tmrw…_

Hayley glanced over to the viciously orange-glowing, computerised numbers that flicked audibly over to 2:04am. She dropped her head and sighed, quite content to ignore her chemistry exam, wishing she could drop into the depths of a coma and only awaken from it at the end of the week when all the exams were over.

_To: Maia Vaisey_

_From: Hayley Webster_

_just editing my youtube vid. going to sleep soon_

Hayley sent the message and proceeded to roll lazily across her bed, facing the ceiling. Her brain was running around in her head, ricocheting off walls while screaming, "YOU SHOULD HAVE STUDIED FOR YOUR TEST!" She clamped her eyes firmly together and squeezed them so tightly that they began to cramp and she had to return to staring at the ceiling.

Another message appeared on her screen and the TARDIS materialising was heard. If only she could run off into the night with a mad man and a stolen box, and live the rest of her life saving and exploring the world. But no – instead she had to 'write another English essay' and 'sit a hundred more tests'.

_To: Hayley Webster_

_From: Maia Vaisey_

_okay just make sure u get some sleep. c u tmrw xx_

Hayley closed the laptop and allowed the room to become engulfed in darkness. The only thing that disturbed the ever-consuming night was that distinctive radiance expelled by the digitalised clock. The room was otherwise pitch black, and she hated it. The dead of night always had the same symptoms – the obscuring gloominess and an eerie silence. No one was around, it seemed as if the entire country had been poisoned and all the liveliness and beauty had been drained and discarded. It was just darkness - quiet and alone - and she hated it.

Just as she was thinking this, she heard a scratching noise on her window. It seemed as if a branch was scraping along the glassy surface, digging its talons into the window, causing the glass to cry out in pain. The scratchy squealing went on for some time before Hayley realised what was wrong with the picture. She didn't have any trees in her front yard… So what was scraping at her window?


	2. Chapter 2

**CHAPTER 2:**

Hayley's eyes fluttered open and her stomach dropped as adrenaline pumped through her. Blood started racing to her legs as she prepared to run as far away from the mysterious scratching at her window as possible. All the possible scenarios of what could be outside her house started to rush through her head. She pushed past a series of mythical monsters that were stored away in her mind and could usually only be accessed at the least of necessary times, such as when she was trying to fall asleep in her dark bedroom, or when she was home alone; and she finally settled on the fact that it was probably just her cat trying to get in from a long night of pestering neighbours and tormenting the guineapig that lives next door.

_Honestly,_ she attempted to sooth herself, _you're getting worked up over your cat? Pathetic! Think of Dean and Sam Winchester who have to fight REAL monsters! _The 'Dean and Sam Winchester' speech was quite a commonly reoccurring one for Hayley to chant in her mind as a sort of mantra. She lifted herself out of bed whilst quietly mouthing to herself, "Dean Winchester…" She slung her dressing gown over her white nightdress that clung to her frail form. "Dean Winchester…" With fragile fingers, Hayley gently grasped the brass doorhandle and twisted it to be rewarded with a satisfying click. "Dean Winchester…" She entered the hallway and took a deep breath whilst taking in the appearance of the front door. The wooden slab that blocked her off from the outside world was coated in a crackle of white paint that had yellowed over time. It was meticulously detailed with small carvings of a forest scene, and a fox's face for the door handle. Her hand closed around the fox's head as she twisted it circularly, with a final projection of her mantra, "Dean Winchester!"

The door swung open to reveal her front porch empty, apart from the splatter of mismatching outdoor furniture. Hayley was both relieved and perplexed by the apparent emptiness of the porch. And then she noticed it. A tree. A thick willow with knobbly limbs and thin, silvery strands of hair was crouching over her porch and tickling at her window. Hayley stared; utterly bewildered on how the willow had sprung up overnight, when she noticed three apple trees were cheerfully blossoming in her front garden, showing off an array of plump, red apples. Small robins bounced boisterously from the different limbs of the youthful fruit trees, and sang melodically as they flaunted their acrobatic skills. Hayley noticed a thick strip of grassy moss leading down to the front garden, and, still in a discombobulated frame of mind, began to follow the trail down to the garden to explore the phenomenon. The moss beneath her bare feet was springy and dewy, as if it were the dawn of a new morning, and as she followed the trail, more trees began to wiggle their roots into the soil and position themselves nicely in her garden.

_I must be dreaming… _Hayley tried to convince herself, but there was a nagging feeling in the back of her mind that it was all too real – she could see the trees and flowers appearing all around her, she could hear a distant stream somewhere, she could feel the cool moss beneath her feet occasionally giving way as she padded along. As the new world around her was becoming more and more clear the further she went, her house was slowly becoming more vague and distant, much like how gentle waves on the beach slowly tear away at any sand castles within their reach. It was as if she were stepping into another dimension or bursting through the walls of a perception filter. Hayley knew she should have been feeling nervous, but her sense of adventure and excitement was flooding through her brain and sweeping over and swallowing up any other emotions that tried to push through. As her feet carried her forwards, the cement floor suddenly exploded into a thick, bright carpet of green grass with the occasional head of a peppy flower flopping through.

Hayley was suddenly enveloped in a forest of trees and splurges of dappled sunlight. Oaks and ashes, pines and firs, all surrounded her along with the occasional tangle of brambles or ivy climbing up the bases of the thicker trees. She could hear a stream in the distance, the soft tinkle of flowing water over rocks, and decided to follow it. Several meters up, there was a clearing of trees where the golden sunlight could wiggle its way through the revealing crack and shine down on the steadily moving water. White lilies sprouting golden tufts from their centres bobbed absentmindedly in the water, dragonflies darting from one another, chasing each other through the sky. Hayley began to walk towards the clearing along the river to see if she could get her bearings and find out where she was, when she heard someone lightly singing. Hastily, she ducked down behind the choked base of a tree that was strewn with ivy, and slowly started to edge her way towards the melodic tune. Hayley leant over the edge of the riverbank to see a beautiful woman with long, golden hair like the sunlight, dressed in a rich olive-green dress. The woman was sitting in the shallows collecting water lilies while quietly humming a tune to herself, similar to what the birds sing to each other. Hayley watched how as the woman wandered through the stream collecting flowers, and how delicately she had pushed a handful of wavy, golden hair behind her ear before returning to the water flowers. Hayley's decision on whether to approach the strange woman or not, was made for her when she heard a man coming towards the river calling out "Goldberry" (which she assumed must be the name of the fairy-like woman, as she answered to it), and the woman gently hoisted herself from the glistening water to go and meet the man. Hayley decided that she would follow the stream to see if it collected into a large lake or dam where she might find someone to ask for directions.


	3. Chapter 3

**CHAPTER 3:**

A cool wind tickled at the bare skin on Hayley's arms and legs, and she tugged the thin cotton dressing gown that she had grabbed from her room, tightly around her. Judging from the rich golden and auburn colouring of the trees, Hayley assumed that it must be around early autumn. Carefully pressing the balls of her bare feet into the ground as not to step on anything that would pierce her skin, she contemplated her current situation. The normality of her life had been whipped away from her so instantaneously that she hadn't particularly had time to process it. She irritably ran a hand through her coppery red hair, and stopped dead in her tracks. The hand that was still in her hair grasped a healthy chunk of her fringe and pulled it over her eyes to see. As soon as she released the hair it sprung up, retracting in a springy, auburn coil. The entirety of Hayley's head was covered in red ringlets, when her hair normally sat in a more or less strait manner. The next thing she noticed was her feet. They were thick and leathery, with strong soles and wiry, caramel hair was sprouting from them. She checked the backs of her hands just to ensure they weren't sprouting any unwelcome hair, either. "This is so weird…" she mumbled to herself, as she continued alongside the ever hastening stream. The gentle wind bounced delicately through the trees, weaving between the crisp, golden leaves that were holding lazily to their perches. The trees' limbs stretched their fingers and arms across the sky, interlocking with other limbs, creating a puzzle of nature, leaving splotches of the sky open to view. She had been walking for around twenty minutes, wondering if this forest would ever end and if she would actually ever find someone, when she heard voices.

"Pippin! That's my apple!"

"But I want some!"

"Yeah, well if you were the one who had to steal them from Farmer Maggot's garden and get nearly killed by his dogs in the process, then you wouldn't want to share them either!"

"Do you two ever stop squabbling?" A third voice chimed, laughing as he said so.

Hayley realised that the voices were coming from a small group of people, probably about 30 meters away, judging by the noise. She began to pick her way through a series of trees before she stumbled onto a main pathway. She looked down at the neatly laid, gravel path and sighed before saying, "Well that would have been helpful to know before I went and wandered aimlessly around a forest."

"… Who are you?"

Hayley spun around and completely froze when she saw that the people whose voices she'd been following, where now standing directly in front of her. She just stood there, unsure of how to approach the situation and what to say.

"Do you think she can understand us?" One of them said to the group in a Scottish accent.

_Oh crap… Am I in Scotland?! _

"Of course she can understand us Pippin – she's a hobbit and all hobbits speak the common tongue."

"Hold on," Hayley interjected, "I'm a what?"

"A… Well, you're a hobbit, Miss…"

"Sorry, but no I'm not. I'm an ordinary teenage girl who was at home in Melbourne, on my computer not half an hour ago!" Hayley began to panic, "And you're just a bunch of guys trying to pull a stupid prank on me!" The group just stared at Hayley with confused looks, and she soon caught on that they really had no clue what she was saying. "Am I dreaming then?!" She proceeded to pinch at the bare skin on the back of her arm with no apparent avail. She sighed with a very heavy frustrated and fed-up undertone, running her hand across her face. "Fine. Can you please tell me where I am?"

"You're in The Shire – or more specifically in The Old Forest, on the boarders of Buckland."

Hayley ran all three of the locational names that she had been provided with through her mind, but couldn't manage to dig up anything that helped her to understand where she currently was.

"… Am I still in Australia?"

Again, the group shared a series of confused glances before one of them spoke up. "No Miss, you're in Middle Earth…"

"Great." Hayley commented sarcastically, before a wave of nausea and dizziness washed over her. She quickly sat down on a nearby log, and rested her head in her hands, attempting to block out the unfamiliarity of this new world. She heard someone approaching her, and looked up to see it was the youngest of the group. He had dark hair and piercing blue eyes, with an overall softness and gentleness that Hayley found comforting. He sat softly down on the log next to her and said softly, "Are you alright, Miss…?"

"Oh, uh, Hayley. And yeah I-… I'll be fine." She smiled weakly at him, but was only met with a concerned gaze in return.

"Well, I'm Frodo, and it's a pleasure to meet you." He smiled back at her and began to introduce the rest of the group. "This is Merry and Pippin and Sam." Each one smiled or nodded in Hayley's direction when their name was said, so that she could associate each name to each face. Frodo continued, "We were actually visiting Merry who lives here in Buckland, and we decided to all go and see our old friend Tom Bombadil who lives in this forest." Hayley nodded to let him know that she was able to keep up with the various names and places that Frodo was describing. "We were going to head back to Hobbiton – where I live – as it's my uncle Bilbo's birthday in two days; and you are more than welcome to come back with us if you're in need of a place to stay."

Hayley didn't want to be rude, and felt that she was being intrusive. "I- I don't want to be an inconvenience to you…"

"Nonsense! We have plenty of spare rooms for everyone, and Bilbo loves meeting new people."

Hayley scanned across everyone's faces before smiling and saying, "Thanks, that would be great."

**A / N:**Thank you to everyone who has left reviews! If you haven't, please tell me how you liked the chapter :) See y'all in chapter 4 xx


	4. Chapter 4

**CHAPTER 4:**

Frodo stood up and held his hand out to Hayley, who took it gratefully, as she wasn't feeling the strength to pull herself up from the log she was sitting on.

"We have a carriage down by the Brandywine River – about a mile away. It will probably take us the rest of the afternoon to get back to Bag End." Frodo began to describe The Shire and the history of the various families such as the Baggins, Brandybucks, Tooks and Gamgees, and how his uncle Bilbo was having his one hundred and eleventh birthday party and half The Shire had been invited, and how some wizard called Gandalf was supposedly going to be there.

"You know," Sam interjected, "Mr. Gandalf might just be able to help Miss Hayley here. I'm sure he knows about all sorts of magical-mishaps and what-not."

By the time they had gone through just about every piece of Shire history and every embarrassing birthday party story from various people over the last few years, they'd reached the Brandywine River. There, sitting on the tussled and spongy banks, was a large carriage made from richly coloured and fastidiously designed wood, with velvety red draw curtains. Two ponies were harnessed into the front of the carriage, with beautiful deep purple reins with detailed embroidery.

"Whoa…" Hayley looked at the carriage and smiled at how much she felt like a princess in that moment with an awaiting carriage. She suddenly blushed, and a deep red sprouted from her cheeks and rapidly enveloped her entire face, as she realised that she was standing there in her nighty. She was snapped out of her thoughts when she realised that everyone had gotten into the carriage and was waiting for her. Sam sat around the front of the carriage and held the reins of the ponies, while Frodo, Merry and Pippin got into the back. Hayley squeezed into the seat next to Frodo, as Merry and Pippin were on the opposite one, and she tried to smile as she sat down next to him to reassure him that she was fine.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Frodo asked quietly.

_No. I'm not. My whole world has just been flipped upside down, cut into hundreds of pieces, splattered in various directions and then re-named 'Middle Earth'._

Hayley knew that saying that wouldn't do anyone any good, so she tried another smile and nodded.

The journey to Hobbiton took several hours, but followed a fairly flat road apparently known as 'The Great East Road'. Hayley listened to some of the light-hearted stories that Merry and Pippin offered up about various tricks they'd played around The Shire, and the different crops they'd stolen (or "procured" as Merry liked to put it). Pippin was telling a story of their most recent run-in with Farmer Maggot, and how they both had to escape up an apple tree and over a back fence of someone's garden. By the time he had finished the story, they were all in hysterics – even Frodo was laughing who, up until this point, had been telling them off for pestering Farmer Maggot so often. But after a few hours when the night began to close in around them, they all were beginning to get drowsy and Pippin was complaining that he was hungry, and eventually Hayley fell asleep with her head resting on the door of the carriage.

She was awoken by someone lightly shaking her, and she opened her eyes to see Frodo leaning over her. "We're just coming into Hobbiton now Hayley, and I thought you might like to see it."

Hayley peered out the window and assumed that she must have been asleep for an hour or two, as the sky had considerably darkened. The carriage reached the peak of a hill and began to descend down the opposite side, resulting in a very cinematic view of the layout of Hobbiton. Distant lights twinkled softy. A mellowed orangey colour was given off from various fires and candles lit, the lights peeping out the round, glassy windows of the homes that were embedded in the faces of the hills. Spirals of sluggish smoke spilt lazily from brick chimneys and drifted off into the deep night air. The ponies climbed one more hill, before stopping out the front of a great, rounded, green doorway, positioned at the pinnacle of The Hill, under a great and ancient oak. The fingers of the tree stretched hungrily out into the night air, with glossy leaves reflecting the moonlight. Merry, Pippin, Frodo and Hayley all exited the carriage and removed both Merry and Pippin's luggage, as Sam took the ponies a few houses down to their designated stables.

"Pippin – what in the world have you packed?!" Merry said frustratedly as he hauled Pippin's bags to the door. "Don't tell me it's extra food." The comment initiated a small laugh from Frodo, who quickly shut up when Pippin gave him a deadly stare.

Suddenly the dark green door swung open to reveal an older hobbit who Hayley presumed was Bilbo. He laughed cheerily and said, "Well! You've actually arrived at a reasonable hour, rather than last time." He raised his eyebrows at Merry, "I'm assuming you didn't let Master Meriadoc lead the ponies this time?"

Sam laughed and said, "No sir! We made sure of that this time round."

Hayley looked over at Frodo as she was feeling that she was in a bit of an awkward situation. Like that feeling when you arrive at a party and everyone forgets to introduce you. Luckily, Frodo quickly caught on and realised that Bilbo was still unaware of Hayley's presence.

"Bilbo, this is Hayley," Hayley smiled politely at Bilbo as Frodo continued, "We, um, found her wandering around The Old Forest earlier this afternoon. She says that she's not from around here, and was brought to Middle Earth by accident. I was thinking, since Gandalf will be here in the next few days, that maybe he could give Hayley some answers, and that she could stay with us in the meantime?"

"Of course! You are most welcome here, Miss Hayley!" Hayley smiled thankfully at him before he continued. "Now, you best get all these bags inside – dinner's on the table and we don't want it getting cold!"

Pippin grabbed his bag and rushed inside saying, "Thank goodness! I'm starving!"

Frodo showed Hayley to one of the many guest rooms, and got out a clean shirt and linen pants that served nicely as a clean change of clothes. The bed was set, but Frodo insisted that he find an additional blanket as tonight was supposed to be especially cold. Before he rushed out into the labyrinth of corridors, Hayley stopped him. "Frodo?"

He poked his head back around the door, "Miss Hayley."

"Thank you. For everything…"

He smiled back at her, "You're most welcome."


	5. Chapter 5

**CHAPTER 5:**

Hayley took off her nighty and changed into the fresh clothes she had been given, before heading out to have dinner. Everyone was already eating and chatting amongst each other, so Hayley didn't feel like she was awkwardly being waited on when she walked in. Merry and Pippin were arguing over who would get the last piece of sausage and Sam and Bilbo were too absorbed in a conversation on gardening and recent weather patterns to notice. Hayley sat down in one of the spare seats and Frodo came over and put a plate of food down in front of her, before sitting down next to her. She smiled and thanked him, and after a full meal (or two in Merry and Pippin's case) plus a dessert, everyone was feeling quite pleasantly full.

"So Hayley – why don't you tell us about your story and where you really come from?" Bilbo asked her. She suddenly felt the weight of five pairs of curious eyes lying heavily upon her.

"I um, well it happened last night. I was sitting in my room on my comp- uh, never mind. I was sitting in bed when I heard something outside my window. I went to check out what it was, and there were all these trees in my front yard that weren't there before. I was walking deeper into the garden and the further I went, the more I got sucked into this world, and the further my own fell behind…" Hayley proceeded to tell the hobbits how she wandered quite aimlessly through the forest, and how she meet the strange river-woman (who she was informed by Sam was known as 'Goldberry', the wife of Tom Bombadil whom they were visiting whilst journeying through The Old Forest), and how she eventually bumped into the four hobbits.

Sam seemed to be confused for a long period of Hayley's story and eventually decided to speak up. "If you don't mind me asking Miss, but how is there a whole other world out there with hobbits and we don't know about it?"

"Well, in the world I came from I wasn't a hobbit – I was just a human girl…"

After all the plates were washed up and the table was cleared, and the fire was finally put out, they all said their goodnight's and departed to various rooms in the house. Hayley followed Merry and Pippin back to the section of the home that had all the guest rooms, and when she finally recognised her door, they all said goodnight and headed to bed. Hayley got into the bed and immediately sunk into the light and spongy mattress. She pulled the quilted blanket around her and almost instantly fell asleep.

The morning slowly dawned upon Hobbiton, and golden sunlight trickled through the open, rounded window, drowning Hayley's bed in a shimmer of yellow light. The thin curtains flapped lightly in the cool morning breeze that had somehow found its way into the room. Hayley yawned lazily and tried to prize her eyes open that were thick with the weight of sleep. For a second she forgot where she was and began to panic. _Where am I? Whose room is this? _Then the memories of the previous day slowly began to come back to her. As if she couldn't see her image in a foggy mirror, and she'd begun to rub away at the cloudiness. Hayley carefully got out of bed and wandered over the window, pulling back the energetically flapping curtains as she did so. From the window, Hayley could see out across the vast front garden that was colourfully lit by the spritely heads of a variety of flowers and plants, and all down The Hill and across the town of Hobbiton. The hills rolled on for miles, and were only interrupted by the occasional cluster of trees or bubbling streams and little lakes. It really was a sight, and Hayley was so caught up in searching over every speck of detail that she didn't notice someone enter the room.

"Miss Hayley?" Hayley immediately spun around to see Sam standing in the doorway. "I was wondering if you'd like some breakfast?" Her stomach rumbled in response to the word 'breakfast', and she laughed at how much her appetite had considerably grown over the past day, before following Sam down the hallway.

"I can't guarantee anything of the quality of the meal since it was Merry and Pippin who insisted on cooking it." Sam shared a laugh with Hayley before they both turned into the main dining area. The table was covered from end to end in various foods, both savoury and dessert-like. It was so plastered with food that none of the table's wooden surface could actually be seen.

"Ah, Miss Hayley," Merry chimed, sticking his head around the corner of the kitchen wall, "Will you be accompanying us on the picnic with us today?"

He was mocking politeness, so when Hayley replied, she joked in the same tone, "I would be most delighted. Especially since you two sirs seem to have done so much cooking."

Sam set out a plate of breakfast for her; a thick, patterned plate with a hearty amount of various fruits and creams, and bread and butters. She took the plate thankfully, placing it down with a heavy clunk on the sturdily built table. Sam returned moments later with a plate of his own and sat down next to her. Half way through her honey and clotted cream loaf, Hayley inquired as to where Frodo and Bilbo were. Sam, half way through a mouthful, replied, "They've just gone down to the Green Dragon to sort out a few of the arrangements for tomorrow evening, but they're meeting us at the lake in an hour for the picnic." Hayley nodded understandingly and continued to finish her breakfast.

By the time Hayley and Sam had finished their food and cleared their plates, Merry and Pippin where already busy at work with packing all the various cakes and rolls into picnic baskets, followed by rolling up a gingham-printed rug and tucking it into one of the less cramped baskets.

**A / N:** **Sorry for the late update! I'm trying to keep the chapters coming, but tbh I don't really have much of an idea for the plot line (stupid me...). I might just need a bit of time to map things out **

**Reviews are much appreciated and help to motivate me to actually write :) haha**

**See y'all in the next chapter xx**


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